It is easy to make fun of Iowa and New Hampshire. These two states, with a combined population of 4.3m mostly white people, will soon kick off the 2008 primary season (see page 69)—and also influence the presidential race out of any pos- sible proportion to their size. Ethanol subsidies for greedy farmers, bleak midwinter meetings in rural diners, humourless men in lumberjack shirts: all come in for their share of ribbing. What an absurd way to choose a president, sneer many non-Americans, perhaps forgetting their own arrangements (the coronation of Gordon Brown as Labour leader and prime minister, without a single vote, springs to mind).
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